Grammar Therapy Session 1

Grammar: What and why?What is grammar?

How do we know what we “ought” to say? What are the main grammatical categories?

Download these slides now:

danielmidgley.com/

grammartherapy

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What I do

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Talk the Talk a weekly podcast on RTRFM

Tuesdays at 11am talkthetalkpodcast.com

The Speakeasy a weekly spot on

ABC Perth 720 Thursdays at 6:30am

danielmidgley.com/speakeasy

Teaching Linguistics at UWA

tdanielmidgley@gmail.com

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Quick questions1. What is grammar?

2. How and when did you learn the grammar of English?

3. Can you think of something that someone has told you not to say? Did they tell you why?

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What is grammar?Grammar can refer to structural rules that govern how parts of language combine.

But it can also refer to the mechanics of language, including usage and punctuation.

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“Grammar is often a generic way of referring to any aspect of English that people object to.”

Jeremy Butterfield Damp Squid: The English Language Laid Bare

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What is grammar?We need to understand grammar in two ways:

1. Grammar in the broad sense Syntax

I love the smell of linguistics in the morning.

*Smell I the linguistics love morning the of in. Morphology

un-remark-able

*able-remark-un

Usually, nobody makes these mistakes.

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What is grammar?2. Grammar in the narrow sense

The conventions of writing spelling, punctuation, confusable words

Understanding appropriateness Formality levels

formal, informal, academic, slang

Being able to code-switch

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Language policingUnfortunately, grammar often involves

language policing language hygiene

And this is especially true now that we communicate in writing so much more.

Hostility toward the type of language used by a group is usually a stand-in for hostility against the people themselves.

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The ApostrophiserWhen bad punctuation strikes storefront signage in Bristol, England, a self-styled apostrophe avenger springs into action. The BBC reports that an unidentified man has spent years venturing out at night to correct infractions against the English language spotted in public street and retail signs. http://mentalfloss.com/article/93983/grammar-vigilante-correcting-street-signs-one-apostrophe-time

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like

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Weird thing about language 1All language behaviour is orderly.

Saying like There are places where you can and can’t say like.

I had to walk for sixteen blocks.

I had to walk for like sixteen blocks. I had to like walk for sixteen blocks.

I had *like to walk for sixteen blocks.

I had to walk for sixteen *like blocks.

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How has like changed?

Listen to Episode 278: Like (featuring Alexandra D’Arcy)

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Language analysisAgta

Australian Z-nicknames

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Weird thing about language 2No one makes the rules. or

Everyone makes the rules.

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?

Make observations about language Build a hypothesis to explain it Experiment to see if it works Change the hypothesis, if necessary Draw conclusions and share the knowledge

Not how it works

How it works

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Weird thing 3A lot of grammar rules are just superstitions

invented by someone’s preferences

and not by what people actually do

“Don’t end a sentence with a preposition.”

What are you thinking about?

“Don’t split infinitives.”

…to boldly go where no one has gone before.

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Split your infinitivesAround the 1400s, it was fine (though not very common) to use an adverb between to and a verb

to better understand

By the 1500s, split infinitives had disappeared

and no one knows why In the 1700s, they came back

and grammar writers didn’t like it one bit John Comly: English Grammar Made Easy to the Teacher and Pupil (1803)

“An adverb should not be placed between a verb of the infinitive mood and the preposition to which governs it.”

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What people really do“Don’t split infinitives.”

But if we examine a corpus, we find:

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to fully appreciate

to appreciate fully

to better understand

to understand better

109 times

16 times

874 times

94 times

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Weird thing 4Language is always changing

So don’t take today’s grammar rules too seriously.

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“Error is the engine of language change, and today’s mistake could be tomorrow’s vigorously defended norm.”

David Shariatmadari http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/11/pronunciation-errors-english-language

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Weird thing 5It’s normal for people to speak differently.

Everyone has command over a range of styles and they switch between them all the time

depending on who they’re talking to

and what about

We often have one style we use with friends

and another with co-workers

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The stages of language understandingThree stages to go through:

1. I hate when people say… 2. I know I should not hate

when people say…but I still do.

3. I think it’s kind of cool when people say…because then I get to find out something about language.

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What we are going to work onHow to solve language problems

Looking at language like linguists do

Knowledge about language (KAL) Grammar terms

How to recognise and avoid common language SNAFUs

Working with common language attitudes Recognising that other varieties of English are linguistically valid

What do you want to happen in this class?

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Parts of speech

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prepositions determiners

conjunctions interjectionspronouns

nouns verbs adjectives

adverbs

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NounsTraining wheels definition

Person, place or thing

A better definition would look at what other words can be substituted

The cat messily devours the rare fauna.

what behaviour nouns show

Nouns inflect for number cat ⟶ cats Some suffixes are nouny explanation, teacher, goodness, treatment

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nouns

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NounsBut there’s more than one kind of noun.

common nouns refer to ordinary things mountain, dog, woman, city, time

proper nouns refer to specific things K2, Lassie, Florence Nightingale, Paris

countable nouns can be counted apples, rocks, knives, cities, forks, bottles

uncountable nouns can’t mud, chocolate, salad, music, importance, justice

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nouns

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verbsVerbsTraining wheels definition

Doing words!

A better definition would look at what other words can be substituted

The cat messily devours the rare fauna.

verb behaviour

Verbs inflect for number, person, tense, whether it’s continuous or not devour ⟶ devours, devoured, devouring

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VerbsThere are different kinds of verbs, too.

main verbs walk, sleep, pontificate, do, have, be

auxiliary verbs do, have, be

modal verbs can, could, shall, should, will, may They can be used together: I should have studied

dynamic verbs buy, build, eat, follow

stative verbs be, have, know, like, seem

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verbs

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Adjectives adjectives

Training wheels definition Describing words! or

A better definition would look at what other words can be substituted

The cat messily devours the rare fauna.

adjective behaviour Adjective suffixes accidental, imaginary, easy, forgetful

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Adverbs adverbs

Training wheels definition

Describes verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs

Tells how, where, when, or to what extent

A better definition would look at what other words can be substituted

The cat messily devours the rare fauna.

adverb behaviour

Adverb suffixes smartly, enthusiastically

but also rather, quite

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Parts of speechWhat kinds of words do we have in English?

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prepositions

determiners

conjunctions

interjections

Prepositions are “anything you can do to a bridge” over, under, in, on, around, past

Conjunctions are “joining words” and, so, but, or, when

Determiners “tell about nouns” a, an, the, some, many

Interjections are “things you can shout” Hey! Ouch! Flip! Oh! Tarnation!

pronouns Pronouns are “substitutes for nouns” you, it, I, he, she, they

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What’s the part of speech?★✩✩ Cats are playful and affectionate.

★★✩ Daniel torments us in every session.

★★✩ The destruction of the city was horrifying.

★★✩ Dancing on the tables is strictly prohibited.

★★★ That look is so last week.

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Mad Libs

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Grammar in Australian schools

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AdverbialsAdverbs

“describe verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs” “tell how, when, where, why, and to what extent”

For example: He stared at the donut hungrily.

I’ll be with you shortly.

Adverbials are whole phrases that do the same thing. He stared at the donut with a hungry expression. I’ll be with you in a few minutes.

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AppositionApposition refers to two words or phrases placed next to each other, where one defines the other.

The Paper Kites, a folk band from Melbourne, is coming to town.

Sometimes they use commas (if they’re longer phrases).

Patrick Gorman, the member for Perth, said that… John and Bob, both friends of mine, are starting a band.

Sometimes they don’t (if they’re single nouns or shorter phrases).

My friend Alice is coming for dinner. Nellie the elephant packed her trunk.

Local musician Tomás Ford will be playing at the Bird tonight.

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NominalisationsMaking nouns out of non-nouns

destroy ⟶ destruction

eager ⟶ eagerness

From the ACARA website: Nominalisation is a way of making a text more compact and is often a feature of texts that contain abstract ideas and concepts

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NominalisationsSome people get very worked up over nominalisations.

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Another one“For an operationalized assessment of your own propensity for nominalization dependence (translation: to diagnose your own zombie

habits), try pasting a few samples of your prose into the Writer’s Diet test. A score of “flabby” or “heart attack” in the noun category indicates

that 5 percent or more of your words are nominalizations.”

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Avoiding nominalisationsThat’s one way to do it.

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The ACARA websiteExplanations of grammar terminology

http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/english/Curriculum/F-10

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Materials and linksYou can download these slides (as well as links) at

danielmidgley.com/grammartherapy/

Slides will be available the weekend before classes

but don’t read them because spoilers

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Next timeAdvanced grammar for advanced dummies

subjects and objects

who and whom How to answer any linguistic question

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Outcomes for Session 1Explain what is meant by grammar

Explain what language policing is

Give some examples of words in different parts of speech

Identify gaps in knowledge about language

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